Re: South Africa Steam Trains: Garratt Loco page updated

[<Alastair@elmarie.fsnet.co.uk>]

...
> > > I suspect the largest concentration of Garratt locomotives in the
world
> > > today is on the Alfred County Railway at Port Shepstone, Natal.
Somewhere
> > > in the region of 20 odd locomotives, mostly NGG16, although only a
couple
> > > are runners.
> > >
> >
> > I think not. Unsure of exact figure, but Alfred County cannot have as
many
> > as 20 Garratts at Port Shepstone. I doubt it is more than 10. And none
are
> > in working order.
> >
> > Bulawayo must have greatest concentration of Garratts. Around eight
still
> > used each day on shunting duties around the city.
>
> I wouldn't count on it. According to the official Garratt Homepage the ACR
has
> 16 Garratts on site, of which 5 are runners. The others are mostly stored
at
> Paddock, a couple are stored at Port Shepstone.
>
> SANSRAM in Krugersdorp has 14 Garratts of which but 3 are
non-oprerational, and
> all of those are off site.
>
> So, the largest collection of Garratts would apear to be the ACR, but the
> largest collection of operational Garratts would be this SANSRAM place.
>
> For more details check out Gavin Hamilton's Garratt Page
>
> http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
I had included the ACR Garratts at Paddock in my guestimate.  The Shepstone
site cannot hold a huge number of locos and storing them on the coast with
the salt air is not a good idea.

Does the 16 Garratts include the ones they obtained from the old Ixopo
branch a couple of years ago?  (I forget the name of the shed but recall the
locos sat for many years after closure of the line by SAR).

Alastair